Author: Christine

Christine http://www.mombie.com I'm a writer/storyteller/director/creativity & lifestory coach with a black belt in ITF Taekwon-do. I read voraciously and I write like my fingers are on fire. I'm the founder and Co-Chair of the Association for the Arts in Mount Pearl and I'm the current president of the St. John's Storytelling Festival. I bake a mean chocolate chip cookie.

L is for Light

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Tonight’s post is less a coherent essay than a series of short thoughts on light.

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‘There’s a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.’  Leonard Cohen ‘Anthem’

This line knocks me flat every time I read it. You have to have cracks so the light can get in. How incredibly powerful is that? Yes, things might be broken but that is only part of the process, the cracks are how we see the light, the way to see the solution.

If that doesn’t stir you, I don’t know what will.

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Because I like to look at things from all sorts of different angles, thinking of light immediately makes me think of darkness.

In turn, that makes me think of the kids (and adults) I know, who are afraid of the dark.

You know the saying 'It is better to light one small candle than to curse the darkness'? Do you know what's even better? Lighting four small candles and then making lunch and tea during a 3 day blackout. Girl Guide training for the win!

You know the saying ‘It is better to light one small candle than to curse the darkness’?
Do you know what’s even better? Lighting four small candles so you can make lunch and tea during a 3 day blackout.
Girl Guide training for the win!

I know there must have been a time when I, too, was afraid of the dark but I don’t remember it. In fact, the only time I remember being freaked out by the dark was in the bed & breakfast after my wedding. I woke up in the middle of the night in a completely dark room, I couldn’t hear The Man and I couldn’t see anything. I knew that I wasn’t home but I couldn’t figure out where I was. The bed that we were on was giant (a California King maybe?) and I must have been near the middle and The Man must have been near the edge because I reached out as far as I could in one direction and all I could feel was mattress, I reached as far as I could in the other and it was the same. It was an overwhelming feeling – in fact, I can conjure it up right now and it was almost 20 years ago! I assume that people who have a fear of the ordinary dark must be much the same way – what the heck is out there and why can’t I see it?
I’m not like that at home though, or in most circumstances. I’m mostly not fazed by the dark. Even when it starts coming earlier and earlier as the fall progresses. I enjoy when the light returns in the evenings – it feels MUCH better to leave TKD in the light than in the dark – but I don’t worry about it much when winter brings more darkness. In fact, I find the light of the lamps in the winter to be very cozy and comforting. It’s kind of a relief for me to have a reason to retreat into my house and sit under the warm light of the lamp and just feel like we are in our fortress without having to consider the world outside.
I think part of it is that the light inside is controlled by me, and the lamp light makes me think of reading – so that’s a definitely benefit. 🙂

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Speaking of lights that are controlled by me:

I also like the light in the oven. I can remember being small and looking into the oven through the window to see what my mother was cooking for supper. And I still like that light now – and looking into the oven when my cookies are baking so I can see how they are doing. There’s a literal warmth that accompanies that light of course, but the light itself feels good to the eyes – like there is something fabulous going on – which there is, of course. 🙂

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I used to have an alarm clock light that was supposed to wake me gently by gradually getting light enough for me to wake up. It totally didn’t work for me – instead I would wake up instantly as soon as the light started to come on. It wasn’t gentle, it wasn’t easing into being awake. It was just annoying. The killer is though, I lived with that for ages – and by the way it wasn’t a good enough light for reading at night, so it really didn’t serve me well AT ALL – I’m not sure why I did that, I just have a habit of tolerating little annoyances until they somehow trip into my actual consciousness. Then I usually deal with them swiftly.

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The last couple of days are finally starting to feel springish – the sun is warm when it shines through the window in my room.  I’ve been able to do a little bit of yoga in a patch of sunlight each morning. Yoga seems to me to be a celebration of the body and how it can move, and what matches that better than to connect with natural light when I do that? It just makes sense to be able to do my sun salutations while facing the actual sun. And sometimes the sun is pretty damn rare where I live so it adds an extra boost when I can incorporate it into my practice.

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We often keep our kids company as they fall asleep. One of us will sit in the hall between their rooms and read or write, listen to music or play a game. When my husband sits there, he often turns off the light in the hall and sits there with the glow from his screen lighting up his face. I really like the way it looks when I come upstairs to find him sitting there, absorbed in what he is reading, his face alight. Even thinking about it makes me grin (he is a VERY handsome man, that one).

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What do you think about when you consider the light?

K is for Kind

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One of the biggest challenges I have as a re-story-fier* (life coach, to the uninitiated) is to guide people to be kinder to themselves.

And isn’t that the hardest lesson to learn?

It’s often difficult to be kind to other people – especially when they are getting on our nerves, but it is mind-bendingly difficult to be kind to ourselves. It’s like we’re afraid that if we are gentle with ourselves, we’ll somehow slip off into madness and get totally out of control.

I had the prose poem Desiderata hanging in my room for years. I think I should get another copy.

Isn’t this quote lovely? I had a poster of the prose poem Desiderata hanging in my room for years.
I think I should get another copy.

We aren’t taught how to be kind to ourselves, either. Instead, we get positive reinforcement – in school, at home, in commercials,and in society in general** for being tough on ourselves, for being unforgiving. We are always being told how to be hard on ourselves, and the messages we get mix up discipline (training ourselves to work in effective ways) with punishment (being hard on ourselves for falling short of our plans).

I know I’m hard on myself that way sometimes, wondering if I am just not trying hard enough, wondering what I’ve done wrong, wondering why I just can’t get it together. The good thing is, though, that because I have spent so much time reminding other people to be kind to themselves, I usually catch myself pretty early.

Because I know how hard this is for all of my clients, I have been working hard to make sure that my kids learn to be kind to themselves. It’s tough to be a kid, there’s a lot of pressure to excel at everything and not so much consideration for kids who want to try things just for fun. It would be easy to get caught up in the swirl and let them pile pressure on themselves for not being enough. I try to stay conscious of it, though, and I remind them of times they can make choices to support themselves, I tell them they are enough just as they are, and I try to give them tools to help them see themselves in a softer light.

Are you kind to yourself? How did you pick up kindness habits?

If you aren’t kind to yourself, do you think you could try it out for a while?

 

*I call myself a re-story-fier because I like to help people change the stories that they automatically tell themselves about their experiences, so they can cast themselves in a more positive – KINDER- light.

**Don’t even get me started on the fitness inspiration posters that are supposed to be cheering you on, but seem to be really telling you that anything other than Olympic effort is a waste of time.

Sunday Story: Damn It All

Sundays are a day off from the A to Z Blogging Challenge so to keep my posting momentum I am posting a piece of flash fiction I wrote.

Damn It All

I don’t want to talk about it anymore. The truth of it is that I am all talked out. I’m sick of talking, I’m sick of the sound of my voice in my ears and I am sick of the feeling of it in my throat and I’m sick of the vibration in my tongue and in my teeth and in my brain and I am sick, sick, sick of the whole damn thing. I don’t care what you think about it and I don’t care what you think about me, I only care to lay my head right down here on this table and breath in and out really slow.

That’s all I can do right now is concentrate on my breathing. I don’t think it is fair of you to ask me for anything else because I just can not do it. I cannot do anything else but sit in this chair and put my forehead on this table and breathe in and out. Frankly if you had asked me five minutes ago then I’m not sure I could have even done that. So that’s a kind of progress right, to go from not being able to do something to being able to do it? That’s a way of improving or at least of moving? I’m not sure if I am moving forward, it might be forward, but it is definitely moving and it is not moving backwards because I feel like I am getting somewhere, I’m not getting worse at it so I must be getting better. A kind of better at least.

But I won’t keep getting better if you are going to make me talk about it. I can’t imagine talking about it right now. I can’t imagine forming my lips around the words, I can’t imagine that they will come out of my mouth. Instead I will have a big pile of words hanging around in the back of my throat and then I will choke on them and you will feel terribly guilty because you were so determined to make me talk all about it. And I don’t want to talk about it, not one bit. I don’t know what else I could say to make you understand and I don’t know why you think that making me talk more about it will be any sort of solution. I understand that we are all supposed to buy into the idea that talking will make it all better but I am not purchasing that. I will return that to the store, I will sell it to someone else. I do not want to own that.

I want to just sit here.

I want to sit here with my head on the table.

I want my forehead here on the table, I want to breathe in and out. And I want to do that slowly and I want to feel a bit more calm with each exhale. Breathe in, breath out. Warm forehead on cold table.

Damn it all, I just want some quiet.

J is for Journal

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I have varying success with keeping a journal. The main issue is that I am terrible at keeping a bedtime routine so I end up waaaaaaaaay too tired to actually write an end-of-day recount of what happened. I’m pretty decent at morning pages that I use sort of in a journal way – at least in a working ideas and feelings out kind of way.

Today, I tried a whole new kind of journalling – art journalling. And I REALLY like it. It wouldn’t be a

My first page with colour. Recognize that quote from yesterday's post?

My first page with colour. Recognize that quote from yesterday’s post?

daily record kind of journal, obviously, but I like the idea of it for working out specific problems or for figuring out a visual response to something important or to inspire myself. 🙂

I signed up for the class on a whim weeks ago and I was very nervous about it – my automatic response to anything new is to be extremely nervous, I’ve been at that response so long that I just accept it as a part of the process and move through it. I am even starting to know the difference between nervous because something’s wrong for me and nervous because it’s new. I hope that that gets even more refined with time and I will gradually frop the nervousness at all. I’m not counting on it, but I live in hope!

Anyway, my nervousness dropped considerably when I discovered my friend Deb was doing the class too. Deb is one of those people who makes me more – more myself, more able to step up, more into whatever it is I am doing. She’s a good influence that way. (Note to Deb: You’re a bad influence in several other ways, my partner-in-crime, so don’t worry – you aren’t losing your touch!)

Anyway, when we went into the class, I was extra glad to have Deb there because I realized that my out-going but actually an introvert self would have had to make sure that everyone else in the class was doing okay – so I would have flicked my switch to ‘ON’ and the energy to do that would have sapped all my energy to actually get into the activity.
Anyway, when we went into the class, I was extra glad to have Deb there because I realized that my out-going but actually an introvert self would have had to make sure that everyone else in the class was doing okay – so I would have flicked my switch to ‘ON’ and the energy to do that would have sapped all my energy to actually get into the activity.

Anyway, I was nervous as hell because even though the teacher explained things clearly, there were no rules, no structure for how to get into the actual project. There was just the blank journal and then a bunch of art materials. I felt kind of excited, even though I was terrified.

Now I am not so much one of those people who has to get things RIGHT, but damn it, I hate to get things WRONG. I didn’t want to do this wrong, I didn’t want to try to go too deep or worse, I didn’t want to try and stay too shallow. It felt like a bit of a minefield.*

I like a good spiral, apparently.

I like a good spiral, apparently.

I figured out something to work on though, something I am conflicted on for my work, and I gradually got started, I picked something familiar for my cover – a kind of variation on a Zentangle. And then I decided to do one side of the journal in black and white – because I keep seeking certainty about uncertain things and what’s more certain than having things in black and white?

The other side was going to be in colour as I worked through different ways to solve the problem. The beauty of the colour side was that I realized that it doesn’t matter how I try to solve the problem, any answer will move me forward. That was a comfort.

I was really pleased with how the black and white side came out but I ran out of time to do the side with colour. I took the project with me, obviously, but I was afraid I wouldn’t get to it again.

I did though. I came home and decided that I was going to do a little more work on it, I drew for three hours. That’s more than a little more work but I am damn happy with it.

I found this after I wrote the post!

I found this after I wrote the post!

I saw a fun image from Fit Bottomed Girls a while back about how the main thing that holds you back from new things is not what you think you are, but what you think you’re not.

I’ve spent a lot of my life thinking of myself as ‘not a very visual person’ and as someone who can’t really draw. It turns out though that I just wasn’t visual in the ways I was expecting to be and I mostly haven’t thought of the ways that I could be drawing,

I feel pretty excited about the possibilities that my little project today have uncovered. I am still not going to be a visual artist – I don’t have the training nor the inclination, but I may be a draw-er. 😉

 

 

*Yes, I know how silly it is to overthink these things. I can only stop overthinking once I realize I am doing it!

I is for ‘Ink’

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When I turned 35, about 7 years ago, I got a tattoo. I’m not actually cool enough to refer to my tattoo as ‘Ink’ but let’s just pretend that I am.

It wasn’t so much that I felt a burning need for a tattoo, it was that I wanted to wear a certain symbol. So, after a lot of consideration of design and of placement, I got the eye of Ra, tattooed on my right upper arm/shoulder area. I had thought about getting it on my upper leg or somewhere hidden, but I changed my mind.

This is a shot of me and my handsome husband goofing around at my 40th birthday party a couple of years ago. That's what my tattoo looks like.

This is a shot of me and my handsome husband goofing around at my 40th birthday party a couple of years ago. You can’t tell from the photo, but I am wearing a fancy dress. 🙂

Now, you can see it when I wear fancy dresses and I get a kick out of seeing who gets thrown off by it. Some people are thrown off because I ‘don’t seem like I’d have a tattoo’ (whatever that means) and others are thrown off when they ask me what it is and I have a big story to tell them.*

The reason I got that particular symbol is because of the story of the Egyptian Lioness Goddess, Sekhmet. She was created as a tool of vengeance, the Eye of Ra, but once she was created, her father (Ra) couldn’t control her – she had a will of her own. It took a team of people to trick her into stopping her plan. I’m not much of one for vengeance (although it is probably better if you don’t cross me – heh heh) but I like many aspects of her story.

For starters, in some stories she is referred to as the ‘Goddess of Necessary Destruction’ – How badass is that? Sometimes, you do just have to get rid of what is and start over completely, and she can totally get behind that.

She is also known as ‘The Force Against Which No Other Force Avails.’ Who wouldn’t want to channel that kind of power? I know that having a tattoo that represents that force isn’t the same as being that force but I’m inspired by it all the same.

Also, I found one of the prayers of Sekhmet to be incredibly powerful ‘I am the phoenix, I am the fiery sun. I am consuming and resuming myself. I will what I will.’

I will what I will! Doesn’t that phrase just fill you with power? Don’t you feel like you are calling on the energies of the universe when you say it? If I find myself feeling down or overwhelmed, I sometimes repeat that like a mantra to get myself energized for whatever lies ahead.

And don’t you just love the idea that you can recreate yourself? That you can just start over? That you will rise from the ashes of what was and become something else? I loved (and still love) the idea of wearing a symbol of all of those powerful statements on my arm – it was like an outer manifestation of my inner spirit.

I don’t like that her story is about destroying part of the human race for mocking Ra but it is the story of an ancient goddess after all – very few of them are serving tea and cookies. And it isn’t the details of what she was up to that impresses me, it’s her self-determining power. And, I like how, in her story, the Egyptians were honouring the destructive power of the sun, and the desert, even as they were recognizing how important they both are.

There is a also a sense of balance there that appeals to me, a recognition of the forces of nature, that we often think that we have control over.

So, all of that adds up to my pourquoi story – Why Christine has a tattoo of the Eye of Ra on her arm.

And just for fun, here’s a link to a video of me telling the story of Sekhmet. I just propped up my phone to take the video when a friend of mine couldn’t make it to the event, so don’t expect a fancy movie. 🙂

 

PS – Lately, I have actually been considering more ‘ink.’. When I go to TKD, I have to take off my wedding ring so I don’t hurt my hand (or anyone else) when I am punching. I hate not having my ring on, I miss that symbolic connection when I’m not wearing it. So, I’ve been trying to think of something I could get tattooed on my finger that would have the same symbolic importance for me. I haven’t figured it out yet, but when I do, I may be booking another appointment. 🙂

*Note: Storytellers make everything into a story with important meaning. Engage at your own risk!